Low Back Pain: America, Best Health Care System in the World?
An Arlington TX Chiropractor reveals the following startling facts:
For more information, click on this low back pain link.
One out of every 5 Americans have some type of surgical procedure each and every year. No other country does even nearly as many surgical procedures on its citizens.
Medical Care is not the third leading cause of DEATH in the USA accounting for 225,000 preventable deaths each and every year. Over 100,000 Americans die directly from complications of surgery.
Death from prescription drugs rank fourth, only behind cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. When added to the deaths of botched surgeries, over 3,000 people die each and every week in the USA.
We could logically argue that if the USA spends the most on health care and has the best doctors of anywhere else in the world, then the USA would have the healthiest citizens. This could not be further from the objective truth.
At last assessment, WHO (World Health Organization) rated the USA as #1 in cost, #72 in population health, and #37 in health care delivery. It was estimated that 48 million lacked health insurance coverage.
Again, the USA is #1 in only one statistic: the amount of money spent per capita. In every other category, the USA lags far behind.
The annual cost of health care in the USA is 2.4 trillion. This amount could be drastically reduced if the numbers of unnecessary or questionable treatments were decreased.
In this article, back pain will specifically be addressed:
Back pain is in the Top 10 list of diseases in America coming in at #8.
The annual cost of directly treating back pain is $40 billion per year in the USA. When we add to this cost the estimates that include disability, lost work , and total indirect costs, the cost of treating back pain ranges between $100-$200 billion each and every year.
Back pain sent 3 million people to the ER in 2008 at a cost of $9.5 billion making it the 9th most expensive condition treated in the US hospital ER.
Combining crippling back pain with osteoarthritis (ahead on Top 10list at $48 billion cost), these two conditions rank 4th with a cost of $88 billion per year.
Despite the recent wave of objective data by researchers regarding the high cost and ineffectiveness of most medical back treatments, the use of dangerous drugs, steroid injections, and spine surgeries has greatly increased.
Despite historic medical prejudice, spinal manipulation has been repetitively shown to be the most clinically and cost effective method for the treatment of low back pain (the single largest cause of disability today).
According to Dr. Pran Manga, PhD, MPhil, health economist, “There is an overwhelming body of evidence indicating that chiropractic management of low back pain is more cost effective than medical management.”
Anthony Rosner, PhD, testified before the Institute of Medicine, “Today, we can argue that Chiropractic care, at least for back pain, appears to have vaulted from last to first place as a treatment option.
Chiropractic has not only moved ahead to the top of the list for back pain care, but patient satisfaction scores also top the charts: 94.3% satisfaction from Army personnel, 100% at Air Force bases (12 of 19 facilities reporting), 90% from Navy personnel, and 88.54% from the TRICARE Health Care program for military personnel and retirees. however, despite these glowing ratings, Chiropractic care is still experiencing limited use due to medical bureaucracy within the Department of Defense.
The reality is that on top of subjective patient satisfaction, objective investigation by researchers lead to the conclusion that medical management is not the best front line care, and that Chiropractic care is for the vast majority of low back and neck pain.
Dr. Gordon Waddell, DSc, MD, FRCS, as director of the orthopedic surgical clinic in Glasgow, Scotland states, “Low back pain has been a 20th century health care disaster. Medical care certainly has not solved the everyday symptom of low back pain and even may be reinforcing and exacerbating the problem.”
Even the 1994 “Patient Guide,” published by the US Public Health Service’s Agency For Health Care Policy and Research, concluded and advised that low back surgery was helpful in only 1 out of 100 cases. Further, that a lot of back pain, alone, did not indicate the need for surgery.
Note: Out of the 14 guidelines published by the US Public Health Service’s Agency For Health Care Policy and Research, only the acute low back pain guideline, cautioning restraint and recommending initial conservative care by experienced spinal manipulators, was attacked by the medical profession.
Leading “medical professionals” from prestigious universities, journals, and the US Public Health Service are openly criticizing the onslaught of ineffective use of dangerous drugs, steroid injections, and surgical procedures by the medical community.
When viewing the issue of low back pain in conjunction with the dismal global rankings of America’s health care system, we should all take pause for reflection.
The current health care system controlled and lead by the medical profession, that has existed for decades now, has lead America down the path of financial ruin at the expense of our health.
For more information, click on this low back pain link.
